A note on the Gaussian curvature on noncompact surfaces

Abstract

We give a short proof of the following fact. Let $\Sigma$ be a connected, finitely connected, noncompact manifold without boundary. If $g$ is a complete Riemannian metric on $\Sigma$ whose Gaussian curvature $K$ is nonnegative at infinity, then $K$ must be integrable. In particular, we obtain a new short proof of the fact that if $\Sigma$ admits a complete metric whose Gaussian curvature is nonnegative and positive at one point, then $\Sigma$ is diffeomorphic to $\mathbb{R}^2$.